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Tesla causing drop in gas prices

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Don't think electric vehicle will ever have an impact on fuel prices. IMHO we need to conserve fossil fuel for the other transportation sectors that are more difficult or impossible to electrify.
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There are solutions to all sectors, just not battery electric vehicles.
Bus, Truck, Rail = Hydrogen fuel cells
Air transportation = Use high temp nuclear power to make synthetic Jet Fuel
Industrial process heat (heavy consumer of natural gas) = High temp nuclear power
Large Ships (100 thousand tons and up) = Modular nuclear reactors
Notice that in every instance I mention nuclear, I'm not talking about current nuclear (95% of current nuclear is water cooled, solid fuel reactors), I am talking about molten salt reactors that offer much simpler operation with far better safety (fully passive safety instead of water cooled massively engineering safety).
We could also power Bus, Truck and Rail with synthetic diesel, but it seems nuclear made hydrogen is far more efficient than synthetic diesel. Hydrogen fuel cells achieve 70%+ efficiency and require far less energy to make, ICE Diesel achieve half as much efficiency while using much more nuclear heat to make.
BTW I don't believe in fuel cell cars, primarily because of the lack of a fueling infrastructure. A significant share of buses and trucks run through pre planned routes (less fueling stations needed) and could afford to have ultra high range (say 1500 miles and up), so it should be possible to migrate 50% of busses, trucks, locomotives (and small ships) to hydrogen with far less than a few thousand hydrogen refueling stations worldwide, while in order to migrate 50% of cars to hydrogen it would take tens of thousands of stations (plus all the hydrogen plumbing required).

I look forward to Tesla building at least 200k Model S+Model X and at least half a million Gen 3 cars. Then breaking one million cars / yr. Let assume for a second that Tesla sales stabilize at that point, assuming average 15 year lifetime for a Tesla (including battery and motor replacement) we could perhaps have 15 million cars on the road, compare that with a billion cars on the road by 2020 (we might have that much already). Still a drop in the bucket. We need Tesla, GM, Nissan, Toyota (Prius and FCV) and every other green fuel alternative to succeed in order to simply offset the growth of the middle class in China and India.

Its far more likely to invest on molten salt nuclear to produce synthetic natural gas in ultra high scale and incentivize the ICE fleet to convert to CNG. If USA and Europe offered a good tax break for new ICE cars become tetra fuel compatible (gasoline, ethanol, any mix of gasoline and ethanol or natural gas compatible, perhaps minus the Ethanol... Ethanol from Brazil sugar cane good, Ethanol from corn not a gain for the environment) the fleet could both help consume all the shale NG produced (half the emissions of a regular ICE). Brazil is already doing that. Around half of our new cars are tetraflex, and over 80% is trifuel (gasoline, ethanol and any mix of both). Just need to install the gas cylinder to fuel with CNG. Now if we could have a CNG Prius... That would push it close into total emissions from a Tesla when using the average emissions of the USA grid, at a fraction of the cost. This isn't an attempt to bash Tesla, I LOVE THEM, but we need to realize that even at US$ 40k for the Gen III, its far from the cost of a cheap entry level car (while a Gasoline/CNG hybrid doesn't need to cost more than US$ 3k than a regular ICE, including the gas tank).
 
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The Prius' engine will run from +7 to +67 seconds after power on if you don't drive it and don't have the cabin heater on (not counting PiP). So the correct statement is that it doesn't stink up the garage as much as an old fashioned car.

No, My Prius doesn't start the Gas engine in the garage. It won't start the gas engine until I put it in drive and sometimes not even then. I back out of the garage, turning 90 degrees to point out the driveway, put it in drive and if the weather is cold enough it starts then, if not it doesn't start until I hit 12-20 MPH depending on how hard I hit the gas pedal (often I'm two blocks away from home when it starts in the summer).

Now once it starts it will continue to run for a bit to warm up the catalytic converter and short of parking the car I can't stop that warm up cycle but it doesn't ever start the car inside the garage for me.

If your Prius starts up right away its because you have the Heat/AC on or the battery pack is low on SOC. But don't mistake that as a the way a Prius will behave in all situations.
 
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No, My Prius doesn't start the Gas engine in the garage. It won't start the gas engine until I put it in drive and sometimes not even then. I back out of the garage, turning 90 degrees to point out the driveway, put it in drive and if the weather is cold enough it starts then, if not it doesn't start until I hit 12-20 MPH depending on how hard I hit the gas pedal (often I'm two blocks away from home when it starts in the summer).

Now once it starts it will continue to run for a bit to warm up the catalytic converter and short of parking the car I can't stop that warm up cycle but it doesn't ever start the car inside the garage for me.

If your Prius starts up right away its because you have the Heat/AC on or the battery pack is low on SOC. But don't mistake that as a the way a Prius will behave in all situations.

I believe you're referring to the plug-in Prius which has different characteristics. I can assure you that the 2004 Prius starts the engine up every single time, and as far as I know the 3G Prius does as well, unless that has changed recently.
 
I believe you're referring to the plug-in Prius which has different characteristics. I can assure you that the 2004 Prius starts the engine up every single time, and as far as I know the 3G Prius does as well, unless that has changed recently.

Nope, I have a 2005 Prius, they didn't introduce the PiP until 2012.

Do you Pull out of your garage or back out?

I back out and the Prius doesn't start the gas engine when I shift into Reverse or Neutral, it waits until I shift into Drive to start the gas engine.

If you sit in the garage with the car on but the gear in Park it won't start the engine right away either.

So I'm saying you either Pull out of the garage by putting the car in Drive or the car is starting the gas engine to charge the battery or provide heat.
 
If you look over at the thread in energy, environment you will see the real reason for the drop in gas prices. Do I think that the more efficient cars are helping, yes but the latest drop in a barrel of oil is minipulation of the market. Prices will eventually move up down the road.
 
Don't they always reduce gas prices just before the holidays and then resume sometime into January?
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The cost of a barrel of oil has been dropping for many months and it will not go up in January, do not know when it will start to go back up. It depends if the Saudi's accomplish there goal of slowing down the more expensive exploration that we are doing in the US and other areas of the world. They hate competition so the theory is once the oil is at or near production cost for their competition they will resume price fixing and the cost of oil will rise. We will see.
 
Nope, I have a 2005 Prius, they didn't introduce the PiP until 2012.

Do you Pull out of your garage or back out?

I back out and the Prius doesn't start the gas engine when I shift into Reverse or Neutral, it waits until I shift into Drive to start the gas engine.

If you sit in the garage with the car on but the gear in Park it won't start the engine right away either.

So I'm saying you either Pull out of the garage by putting the car in Drive or the car is starting the gas engine to charge the battery or provide heat.

The gas engine starts seven seconds after you press the button. I've never seen it behave otherwise--doesn't matter if you're in D, R, or N. The engine will start after seven seconds, unless you have the EV button and press it before the seven seconds are up. Of course, if you are in ACC or IG-ON the engine won't start.
 
The gas engine starts seven seconds after you press the button. I've never seen it behave otherwise--doesn't matter if you're in D, R, or N. The engine will start after seven seconds, unless you have the EV button and press it before the seven seconds are up. Of course, if you are in ACC or IG-ON the engine won't start.

FWIW, my '08 Prius is the same. Engine always starts after 7 seconds. Annoying if I'm just trying to move the car around the driveway.
 
Here's an interesting take on fuel prices, Tesla, Elon Musk and CO2.
The Beginning of the End of the Carbon Energy Era (from Forbes Magazine).
A New Climate? How A Utility, Germany, Elon Musk And Falling Oil Prices Are Conspiring To Fight CO2 - Forbes
This article is way too optimistic. At least as far as oil consumption.
Worldwide car production = 50 million / year
If we had 2 million EV cars / year that's just 4%
And we are a long way from Tesla + LEAF + Volt producing even one million cars / year
We need to see how long Tesla will sustain its breathtaking 100% production increase / year
Solar+Wind energy is about the same challenge
Its still less than 1% of total energy production (not just electricity, but including heating, process heat, transportation) done by solar+wind+biomass+geothermal
I'm sure we soon will be increasing 1% per year in total installed base, but going from that to a fully exponential growth (1%, 2%, 4%, 8%) isn't very realistic
That's why I think we need the all of the above solution (EV and Hydrogen for cars, Solar+Wind+Nuclear+Biomass+Geothermal+Hydro for electricity, Nuclear process heat).
 
Then I start driving my ICE again... :)


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